


Eggs in One Basket

by pocketmouse



Category: The Baker (2007), Torchwood
Genre: Crossover, Gen, pre-season 3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-23
Updated: 2009-12-23
Packaged: 2017-10-05 02:07:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,352
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/36617
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pocketmouse/pseuds/pocketmouse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ianto Jones: wears a suit, dodges sniper bullets.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Eggs in One Basket

**Author's Note:**

  * For [omphale23](https://archiveofourown.org/users/omphale23/gifts).



Ianto Jones never thought he'd hear from his old mentor again. He'd moved to London, changed his name, changed everything about himself.

Well, getting rid of his teenage nickname probably didn't count.

And he _had_ moved back to Cardiff after that. He wasn't sure if Milo even knew he'd _been_ in London. Though maybe he had. Milo always knew more than he let on. After all, he'd known how to contact Ianto in order to meet with him.

Ianto turned up the collar of his trenchcoat and scanned the busy crowd of the shopping center. It was raining, not uncommon for springtime in Cardiff, and the early evening hour meant pedestrian traffic was heavy: people just getting out of work, out shopping, or on their way home. Enough people, he was sure, that no one would take any notice of two men huddled under the eave of the dry cleaners'.

There was a bakery across the street. It felt fitting.

It took him a moment to recognize Milo when he saw him. He looked _old_, and for a moment Ianto felt truly young again. Milo's face had softened, crows' feet at his eyes, weight drawing the skin down a little. He looked like someone's old uncle. He looked like a simple baker, and not a notorious assassin.

But then, everyone had their secrets.

Ianto nodded at him, feeling almost hesitant. His now everyday suit suddenly felt uncomfortable, even though it was a thousand times better than the ones he'd filched from Debenham's as a teen. It felt like he was sending the wrong message. But he wasn't sure what that message was.

Milo smiled, but it didn't reach his eyes. "How've you been, Eggs?" he asked. "Keeping out of trouble?" A quirk of his lips and the smile brightened, like he already knew the answer.

Ianto didn't move. "I've been keeping busy," he said, keeping one eye on the crowd.

The smile dropped from Milo's face. "So I've heard." The slightest brush of fingers and there was a piece of paper in his hand. He glanced down at it. A photo -- Jack. Of course.

"You know I'm not in this business any more, Eggs."

"Ianto, please," he murmured, mind racing.

"Ianto," Milo corrected himself. Names were fluid things. "You know what's in the rest of this picture."

Ianto didn't have to look again. He thumbed the crooked edge -- cut with a razor, but not a true 90° edge. Jack, standing on the Plass, coat pushed back, hands in the pockets of his trousers. Smiling, with a squint, at something just to his right.

At Ianto.

He pressed his lips together. "I know." He slid the picture into his pocket, taking a moment to think. Milo gave it to him graciously, pretending to check the bus schedule posted on the wall next to them. "Which one of us is the target?" he asked after a moment.

"Neither. Him." Milo shifted, for the first time showing a hint of discomfort. He turned to look Ianto straight in the eye. "I killed that man. Over ten years ago. There was no mistake, and DNA confirms it's the same man." He stared at Ianto, searching for confirmation of something in his face. Ianto stared back, unsure of what Milo was looking for. And whether he should tell him.

Milo smiled. Just for a fraction of a second, the kind of smile someone else might mistake for a grimace, looking into the sun. But this was rain-soaked, dull-as-mud Cardiff, not a bright spot to be found. "I don't need to know how Harkness got away, Ianto." He tilted his head. "Well, I'd _like_ to know, but I bet I'm not going to find out. Like I said, I'm not in that business any more." He gave Ianto a hard look.

Ianto shook his head. "What we do isn't anything like that." Not officially. Not _intentionally_. "Jack has plenty of enemies. It's nothing new." The crowd was thinning out. Too much longer here, and their conversation would lose its edge of happenstance. Would become _notable_. If it hasn't already. "Besides, if the greatest assassin in modern history couldn't take him out, I don't think he has much to worry about, do you?" There was a caveat there, but Milo didn't need to know about it. It wasn't like anything kept Jack down for long.

Milo pursed his lips. "I know you can take care of yourself --" he was the only one that ever did "-- but make sure you do, all right?" He pinned Ianto with a look, and of course Ianto knew exactly what he meant. Jack might be immortal, but he wasn't invulnerable. Ianto licked his lips. His thoughts flickered to Tosh and Owen, verboten topics in the Hub. Jack's circle of secondary targets was getting smaller all the time.

Milo looked away for a moment, out at the darkening street. "I've got a kid -- two, soon." He grinned like he couldn't help it. "I'm years out of the business, and I can't go running off because some kid I knew once got himself killed doing something stupid."

He wasn't asking Ianto to make him choose, Ianto knew that. He was asking him not to make him regret the choice he'd have to make. Ianto understood that. Double lives were such a common thing these days, it seemed. Who didn't have one?

"I'll be careful," he promised. He made a mental note to check the surveillance and securities at Gwen and Rhys' flat.

"Be more careful," Milo advised. "And they went looking for professionals. They asked me to come back. For this." Milo nodded at the photo. "These are people who have trained snipers on hand. This isn't some civilian outfit."

Ianto nodded sharply. "I'll see if I can twist his ear a little." He scuffed the toe of his shoe. "It would help if I had more information."

"You should be getting a delivery tomorrow."

Ianto looked at Milo. "You seem confident that I'd see you."

Milo shrugged. "I think you'd have opened the package either way."

Ianto hesitated. "You didn't make it yourself, did you?"

_That_ look was familiar. "I've had several years of practice, thank you." There was a red tinge on his cheeks, and Ianto relaxed a fraction. Milo was still Milo, after all.

"Ianto."

Ianto looked up at him. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see a bus approaching. "Make sure you're doing what you really want, okay? That you're not just chasing some idea of a thing, when you don't know what it really is." This was the goodbye he'd skipped out of five years ago, hopping a ride westward in the back of Mac's truck.

"I know what I'm doing, Milo." He nodded firmly. "What I'm doing is important." He knew that wasn't what Milo was talking about, but -- he didn't want to think about it. Life was short. "It's not what I thought I'd be doing," he said, and let Milo think of that what he would, "But I'm not doing it for anyone other than myself. I'm fine with being selfish about this." Maybe he was talking about both things.

Milo smiled. "Good. It's draining, and I wouldn't want that to happen to you. Take care of yourself." The bus pulled up, and with no look back, Milo stepped on, fumbling for change like a man who hadn't used a bus in seven years. Ianto smiled, and stayed where he was, waiting until the bus pulled away, and then until he could no longer see the taillights in the traffic.

He checked his watch, and then the ticket in his pocket. Perfect timing, of course. Two minutes left until the drycleaner's would be done with Jack's latest batch of clothes. They had an appointment at the hospital tomorrow, doing the rounds, and Jack always liked to look his best in public.

Ianto made a mental note to stop by the Army Surplus store again soon, and turned to go into the dry cleaner's. He'd talk to Jack tomorrow. Assassination attempts could wait for the moment.


End file.
